


Out With It

by herbailiwick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock keeps taking John to Angelo's, and John doesn't understand why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out With It

"Okay," John said as they headed out to go back toward Baker Street. "Why Angelo's again?" The question had clearly been eating at him. 

"It's free, and you don't seem to mind," Sherlock said. 

"Well, the food is fine, yes. But." John glanced around, finding the risk level of potentially being overheard acceptable. "But it doesn't explain why you wanted us there three nights this week. It's not like you to exploit friendly discounts."

"Isn't it?" Sherlock asked, smug but a bit surprised at John's deduction.

"No, it isn't," John said. He sighed. "What is this about?"

"You've got a bit of sauce on your jumper. Did you see?"

John rolled his eyes, waited until they got back to the flat. "Okay. Will you just explain it all, now? Are we on a stake out?"

"I barely ate before," said Sherlock, and John knew that meant before John had come to Baker Street, "and I barely eat now. I like to people watch, John," he said, as if people watching was more common a restaurant activity than eating was. And, in the context of who Sherlock was, it certainly did play out that way.

"Yes, okay. But why three times in the same week? Can we move away from the whole cost issue?"

Sherlock moved into the kitchen, checking on something in the fridge.

"Are you just going to ignore me, then?" John fumbled for the remote, then sat down to turn on the telly. He kept it low, waiting to see if maybe Sherlock would actually deign to answer him. Unlikely, but you never know.

Sherlock continued his experiments, and John turned up the telly. John had a hard time focusing on the programme, but he was determined to act like he was enjoying himself. 

Sherlock's hand stopped him on his way up to the bedroom. Sherlock didn't say anything, though John turned right around to face him fully, searching his face for any clues. There were plenty of clues—a lip he'd clearly been biting at, eyes that were full of some strange intensity that John couldn't name—but John couldn't do anything to classify them, any of them. The hand on his arm slowly slid away, and there they were, staring. 

"Good night, John," said Sherlock. It was practically a breath, some sort of sigh. His eyes filled with something embarrassed and a little miserable, and whatever it was spilled onto the rest of his face a bit, then did its best to disappear.

"Good night, Sherlock," John said after a moment. Neither of them moved. "Are you sure you're alright? You don't look alright."

"I've made a mistake," Sherlock said simply.

"No, you?" John joked. But at the lack of a smile from his friend, he sighed. "What kind of mistake was it? You can tell me."

"That's the problem."

"Pardon?"

Sherlock ran a hand over his face, and when it came away, he gave a rueful smile. "I can't tell you," he said.

"Can't tell me what?"

Sherlock smirked slowly. "That would be telling."

"If you can't tell me," John pointed out, "who else is there to tell? Mycroft?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

"He knows already, does he?"

Sherlock nodded. "He's hinted more than once. Did you really mind Angelo's?"

"I just wanted to know why we were there so often. I'm curious more than anything."

Sherlock's lip quirked at that, well understanding curiosity. "Yes, I suppose you would be."

"But you can't tell me."

"No."

"And you want to, though?" John's brow furrowed.

"Sort of." Sherlock smiled again.

"We've been living together, what, a year?"

"A year this past Tuesday."

"Was it?"

"Yes."

John paused. "That was the first night at Angelo's this week, yeah?"

Sherlock pasted on a fake smile and pushed back into the kitchen, though he shot a glance at John that said he could follow him in and not altogether regret it. John took his chances and followed.

"So, maybe going to Angelo's this week was, like, some kind of...er...."

"Say it," Sherlock said in his no-nonsense tone.

"Anniversary?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Very good, John." He didn't seem disappointed in John, only in himself. He moved toward the tissue in the petri dish, clearly needing something to take his focus away from John.

"You know, it's alright for you to have feelings. It is. People celebrating the day they met and all, it's not a bad thing. Maybe a little close, but we're that, if you listen to what people have to say," he teased. He rested a hand carefully on Sherlock's shoulder. "Alright?" he asked again.

Sherlock looked up at John. "I'm alright," he said. And, outwardly, he was. But there was some hurt inside that John could see clearly. 

"If you want me to drop it all, I'll head on to bed. But if you want to tell me, you can just tell me."

There was enough silence that John went to bed.

*** 

The next morning, it was as if the conversation had never happened, or it would have been if there wasn't some sort of added weight when Sherlock would steal glances at him. Beyond that, nothing changed all morning and all afternoon. As for evening, however, he was just anticipating making plans with Stamford when Sherlock told him to come to Angelo's one last time.

"Really?" John looked at him, determining he was serious. "Alright. Okay. Fine."

They sat in the usual booth, and Angelo kept shooting him those knowing looks, which was no different from usual, but, John noticed for the first time, Angelo was shooting Sherlock looks too. Looked like he was trying to nudge Sherlock into action, which John thought somehow would not bode well for him.

"I brought you here for the anniversary of when we met, yes," Sherlock said.

John carefully looked up from his food and nodded slowly. No need to scare Sherlock off.

"I've had a year to think about it all. And I want to...I want to change my answer."

"What?" John said around a bite of bread.

"All work and no play," Sherlock started, smiling a bit.

"What does that mean?"

Sherlock's expression grew shuttered and he took a deep breath. "What do you think it means?" he asked, and turned to look out the window.

John looked around. Okay. Right. Well, Angelo was trying to get Sherlock to talk about what he was still needing to get off his chest. And Sherlock seemed to have started already. He'd admitted that he'd been taking John to Angelo's as a celebration of one year being flatmates when they'd thought the world'd never have use of them.

They were more than flatmates, though. They'd been friends too, nearly since the start, but not quite. Angelo's. Why Angelo's? It had a nice atmosphere, it didn't cost Sherlock at all, and Angelo was quite a nice man when he wasn't insinuating what everyone else found it in themselves to insinuate.

But Sherlock and John weren't like that; Sherlock had made that clear. Here was where he'd made it clear, actually, and they'd been sitting just as they were now, and Sherlock had been staring out the window the same way, like he was a bit nervous. And he'd been nice about letting John down, even though John  _hadn't_ been asking, and

Oh.

"Sherlock?" The intense man swiveled to look him straight on, and John took a steeling breath. "Right. Er, Sherlock, your...answer, did you say? Are you referring to when you...." He sighed, trailed off, paused to collect himself. Could he even do this?

"Yes?" Sherlock said. "Referring to when I what?" He looked properly smug, ready to answer as long as John was done surprising him, as long as he wasn't going to be embarrassed.

"When you let me down—even though I wasn't asking."

"Oh, of course you weren't." Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"I wasn't!" John said. "At least not aloud, and people can't be faulted for what they choose to keep private."

Sherlock looked stunned. "So you meant it, then?"

"What, I meant that I hadn't been asking?"

"No, you meant what went on beneath the not-asking, obviously," Sherlock shot back.

"You know you're attractive," John said a bit defensively. "Just look at what people say about you." Here he ignored Sherlock's comment about there being two types of fans— he'd heard that before, and it was irrelevant at the moment. "If I was attracted but didn't act on it, doesn't that say something about my character, even a little bit?"

Sherlock faltered, looked away again.

"I couldn't have said anything," John said slowly. "How could the feeling have been mutual, when you were so brilliant?"

"I told you I was married to my work," Sherlock said carefully in reply.

"Yes, right," John said, glaring into nothingness as he looked away. "Exactly." He stabbed at his plate with a bit of extra force and hated that he knew Sherlock would notice and categorize and dismiss the action to sentiment.

"But I found something out in the last year, John," Sherlock said.

"Yes, what is it?" John couldn't help the bit of impatience in the tone. He'd just called Sherlock brilliant, laid out his insecurities (or at least the old ones he'd had when they'd just met), and Sherlock had been oblivious. Typical.

"John."

John forced himself to look up, to fake a smile. "Yes, Sherlock?"

"There are more important things than work." 

John watched Sherlock. Sherlock watched John. They were having a hell of a time trying to understand any of the clues. Finally, John asked, "Sherlock. What does that mean?"

"I'm changing my answer."

"Answer?" John paused. "Right. Yeah. Because 'married to your job' is no longer as accurate, or because you want me to have asked you out?"

"Want you to ask me out now, actually."

John blinked. Okay. Good. Fine. "Really?"

"Yes, of course."

John's eyes darted to the candle Angelo always insisted on bringing. Finally, he looked up. "Sherlock, will you go out with me? And not to Angelo's, please."

Sherlock grinned. It was a big, genuine expression that made John feel a bit weak, so he darted his eyes back to the candle. But he found he couldn't stop staring at Sherlock for long. "For you, John, dear John, I'll go anywhere."

John swallowed. He knew it was absolutely true, and that neither of them needed to bring up that he'd offered to do the same nearly since they'd met. John was a fan of Sherlock's before anyone else was—save perhaps Mrs. Hudson and Molly. 

John smirked to himself. Sherlock's expression turned quizzical, a bit nervous, a bit worried. "John?"

John shook his head. "I'll tell you later," he assured, thinking about how his bedroom was much shorter than a taxi ride's distance away. He chuckled, now that they had it all out in the open. He'd done a lot of flirting he could finally own up to.

It was easier to admit to himself that he was a fan because he knew, despite the fact Sherlock finally had many fans and that John had none that didn't personally know him, Sherlock was the one that really mattered. Sherlock, who'd brought him to the same restaurant four times in one week just to tell him he was ready to pursue something, which was kind of celebrity treatment if you looked at it right.

John only needed the one fan. He watched as Sherlock snagged a bit of dessert for them both and dug in.


End file.
